#the cake part was a teensy bit dry that was my only criticism of this cake

[recurring-polynya]

Happy Easter, for those who celebrate, I spent, like 6 hours making a cake!!

I decided ages ago I wanted to do a cake for Easter, and I was originally going to do one of those chop-two-round-cakes into bunny face that my mom made many times in my childhood, although I was waffling because I don’t actually like shredded coconut, which is one of the important decorative elements. Then, my good friends at King Arthur posted this recipe for a Robin’s Egg Cake, and my heart was stolen, I just had to. 

For a variety of reasons, including, 1) as mentioned, I don’t like coconut, 2) it had to travel, and 3) I was exhausted and running late by the time I finished, I elected not to make the bird’s next on top, but it came out pretty cute anyway:

In case you’re wondering how the speckles are achieved and don’t feel like reading the recipe, I will save you the trouble: You mix up some cocoa powder in warm water. Then you dip a pastry brush into this, and flick it at the cake. It certainly makes a nice speckle, but it will also do this to your kitchen:

It was just a smidge too tall for the cake carrier, and the journey rubbed a bald spot on top of the cake, but there’s nothing a Peep can’t fix!!

I don’t really care for blueberry, so I filled one layer with lemon curd, and one with blackberry jam. Both were homemade. I had a lot of trouble getting the lemon curd as thick as I wanted, and I think I actually “overcooked” it-- the result was very thick and very sharp, but I loved it and have no regrets. I have made many curds before using both this recipe and the more traditional stovetop version, and I don’t usually have so much trouble. I used this recipe for the jam (pro-tip: It’s actually much cheaper to buy blackberry jam, it’s only worth making your own if it’s fun for you). If you read through the whole thing, there’s a lot of theory in there about the sugar-to-berries proportions. I think I used 15oz of berries and 7 oz of sugar. It still took a million years to cook, but I thought it came out a nice level of sweetness/berry flavor, and it made the perfect amount to fill the cake.

The recipe recommends piping a “dam” of icing around the filling (you can see it in the above picture) and even though my fillings had set very well and probably could have stood pretty well on their own, I approve this method. You have to dirty an icing bag so I’d endorse it even more if I had done more piping, but it was still worth it.